


HENRY SYLVESTER CORNWELL 

^^ POET OF FANCY ^^ 



A MEMOIR 



ELLEN MORGAN FRISBIE 




^^..^y e5C^— ^C 



HENRY SYLVESTER CORNWELL 

^ji POET OF FANCY ^^ 



A MEMOIR 



BY 
ELLEN MORGAN FRISBIE 



NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT 
1906 






n 



fTl5R/^RV of CONGRESS 

I Two Copies Received 
DEC 20 1905 

v^ Copyright Entry , 
f^r^Jo, ffiL 
CLASS A XXc, N9. 



COPYRIGHT, 1906 
BV ELLEN MORGAN FRISBIE 



PREFATORY NOTE 

In the Autumn of 1904, The Woman's Alliance of New Lon- 
don devoted an evening to the town's former poets, and a brief 
biographical sketch of Dr, Cornwell — the original draft of the 
present memoir — was prepared at the request of Mrs. Annie C. 
S. Fenner, President of the Alliance, as one of the papers to be 
read on that occasion. 

A second reading was requested later by Lucretia Shaw 
Chapter, D. A. R. 

It has been expanded and put in booklet form in response 
to the desire of many friends to have copies of the sketch for 
preservation. 

Dr. Cornwell was an unostentatious man, not given to remi- 
niscences, so comparatively little of biographical detail concern- 
ing him has ever appeared in print, or been handed down by 
tradition. 

The eulogists of Dr. Cornwell who were named in the origi- 
nal sketch were noted men and women of his own day. A 
literary friend whose criticism the author invited, responded 
thus: "At least one bay for your poet's crown should be 
brought in behalf of to-day's devotees of poetry " ; and offered 
this encomium : " Nature endowed Henry Cornwell with a 
fine ear for music, large faculty of language, keen powers of ob- 
servation, and the artist's sense of structure; while his accom- 
plishment of organ-tuning is reflected in feats of rhythm which 
make his technique of peculiar interest to students of poetry." 

Friends who knew the doctor personally have since con- 
tributed from their recollections or manuscripts. 

To all who have aided her with materials or suggestions, the 
author's thanks are cordially rendered. 

E. M. F. 



HENRY SYLVESTER CORNWELL 

Artisan — Physician — Poet 

born in charlestown died in new london 

new hampshire connecticut 

April 13, 1 83 1 , June 8, 1886 

"Whoever writes a poem thereby becomes the author of a 
beatitude, and whoever reads it shares in the sweetness of the 
blessing. A poet is a great gift to a nation, a gift to mankind. 
His words are a perpetual teacher, and an inspirer of noble 
impulses to a people and the race. A true poem has wings. It 
flies abroad until in its flight it has drawn its belt of blessing 
around the world. If we read poems and take them to our 
hearts and love them, they become ours by adoption." 

Thus wrote Rev. W. H. PI. Murray in his introduction to an 
early edition of Dr. Cornwell's poems, and this appreciation of 
poets and poetry fitly indicates the spirit in which New London 
cherishes the memory of her poets who have passed away, and 
which has inspired the weaving together of these reminiscences 
and quotations, in memorial form. 

Henry Cornwell was one of a family of children who were 
early deprived of a father's supporting care, and so compelled 
to learn the many lessons of grim poverty while struggling for 
daily bread. In his boyhood he was employed at one time on 
a farm in the interior of our State, and among the homely farm 
duties assigned him was the task of churning. 

Naturally studious beyond his years, Henry ordinarily stood 
over " the quaint old-fashioned churn " working " the well worn 
handle " with one little hand, holding in the other hand a book 
which he studied. 

In after years he pleasantly recalled the frequent occasions 
when, absorbed in his reading, the churn hand would uncon- 
sciously relax its duties, and the dasher come to a full stop ; when 
from the inner room would promptly issue, in no uncertain ac- 
cents, the admonition — " Henry, mind that churn." 

In his poem, The Old Churn, fancy hears the dasher sing 
its old-time refrain : 

Bonny-clapper, dipper-dapper, 
Buttermilk and cream. 

When a mere lad Henry walked the entire distance between 
Colchester and New London, bringing a younger brother with 



HENR V S YL VES TER C ORN WELL 



him ; and when the little fellow was weary and footsore from 
contact with the rough road, Henry bore him upon his shoulders 
cheerfully and bravely trudging on, so eager was he to reach 
our city by the sea, the Mecca of his hopes of an education. 

As an early step toward the realization of these hopes he was 
apprenticed to the late Mr. N. D. Smith, as an organ and melo- 
deon maker, and learned to be an expert tuner of reed instru- 
ments. He boarded in the family of Mr. Smith, and in a pleas- 
ant upper room in the factory, when his day's work was done, 
he studied and rested ; and as he " sat musing, the fire burned " ; 
and as he wrought his musings into rhyme, the poet was evolved. 

Being both an ardent lover of rural scenes and an untiring 
student of literature, he found in his youth no greater pleasure 
than to ramble through the woods and fields with some work of 
a favorite author as a companion. 

This communion with nature is well illustrated by the follow 
ing, one of his early poems : 

nature ! solace of my heart ! 
In thee my noblest joys I find ; 

For alwajs beautiful thou art, 
And unto those who love thee, kind. 

Great mother, deepest truths are thine ! 

Thy pages make thj children wise ; 
When Spring re-clothes the leafless vine, 

Or Summer lightning stripes the skies. 

Or seas are swept b}' Autumn storms. 
Or Winter leaves bestrew the sod ; 

1 see in all thy varied forms. 
The mystic g'lorv of a God ! 

As a writer in a leading magazine of his day remarked : 
" He discovered beauty in the color of a flower, or the murmur 
of a streamlet, and often the most seemingly trivial objects, were 
to him the subjects of an admiring contemplation." 

By systematic industry and self-denial, Henry Cornwell ac- 
quired the means for a course in the Medical School of Yale 
College ; and graduated with distinction, being second in the 
large class of 1863. He afterwards practiced medicine and sur- 
gery with such success as to gain the respect of his brother 
practioners, the loyal confidence of his patients, and to accumu- 
late the modest fortune left at his death. 

An interesting letter, written at the beginning of the Civil 
War, while the doctor was a student in Yale, is still cherished 
by the friend, Mrs. Harriet Chapman, to whom it was addressed. 



POET OF FANCY 



The following extract from a personal letter reveals the sym- 
pathetic side of his nature : 

" I went to see a poor patient, four miles out, to-day, a young 
girl, dying from the lodgment in the lung, far down, of a piece 
of walnut shell, swallowed while running at play. Constant 
cough, nocturnal perspiration, hectic, and then? — an innocent, 
patient thing of nine years ! However, I made her smile, and 
hope I brought moral sunshine to that little white couch. You 
see we've had a revival and I am awakened." 

Was not the little act of kindness to the suffering girl, the 
cup of cold water given in the name of Christ ? — " Verily, I say 
unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward." 

That Dr. Cornwell's medical career was very creditable is 
attested by the three New London physicians now living who 
knew him best — Drs. Nelson, Stanton, and Braman. 

But on account of his love for literary pursuits he did not 
give himself whole-heartedly to his profession. This is shown 
by the fact that he voluntarily refrained from joining the State 
Medical Association, and by his cultivation of office in prefer- 
ence to outside practice, by which he gained more opportunity 
to keep in contact with books and writing. 

Early in life Dr. Cornwell wrote The Land of Dreams, but 
deferred its publication for five years. To use his own figurative 
speech, as he was " occcasionally struck by poetic lightning," 
he conducted the electricity into this poem. A manuscript copy 
was presented to Charles Dickens, when the great novelist 
passed through New London, on his tour of the United States, 
and was pronounced by that author to be " wonderful." 

The Land of Dreams Ts\zde \ts first appearance, revised and 
corrected as its author designed it to remain, in the columns of 
27ie Landmark, in August, 1869. From The Laiikmark' s edi- 
torial department we learn that " It was printed in several of the 
leading journals in the United States and England, and every- 
where received the high degree of praise it merited." It was 
afterwards translated into other languages, and has thus fulfilled 
the Landmark's prediction : " It will make his name a passport 
to many hearts where true genius is appreciated." 

The Landmark was a weekly journal published in New York 
city and devoted to the interests of Freemasonry, a high order 
of literature, and the arts and sciences. Bayard Taylor was a 
frequent contributor to its columns. 

One of the critics of the New York Tribune wrote : " The 
poem has haunted me. It is wonderfully ideal and imaginative, 
and breathes the very atmosphere of Dreamland." 



HENR Y SYLVES TER CORN WELL 



Professor Martin, of Columbia College also commended 
The Land oj Dreams as superior to any other poem of fancy he 
had noticed for a long time. 

After the publication of The Land of Dreams^ its author 
wrote, " Aldrich came to see me and find out who I was." 

Year by year he gave the public, poems that were praised by 
Aldrich, Richard Henry Stoddard, Bayard Taylor, John G. 
Saxe and the Bohemians of the period. 

In his poem Rue, we have a song story of his youths's ro- 
mance ; for in early manhood he loved a beautiful girl whose 
memory lives in these lines : 

I muse in a chamber quaint and old, 
Of a presence it never more may hold, 
Of her sun-sheen hair of rippled gold. 
And a carven marble so white and cold, 
Out there in tlie rain. 



About the antique ebony bed. 
The tapestries stir like the robes of the dead, 
For a ghostly breeze creeps over the floor. 
Like the sighs of those who have gone before. 



And thus my spirit is sad to-night. 



When I think of the dear, dead lost who sleep, 
Under the green, grave-grasses deep; 
And I long to add to the churchyard row. 
The tablet of one who sleeps below. 

He speaks in another place of an "unlanguaged sorrow ; " and 
from his letters we learn that this bereavement left him " skepti- 
cal, faithless, hopeless of self, existing in a sort of galvanic vi- 
tality, doubting even the future and the Divine." 

Writing a friend he said : " The engine was whirling to its 
own destruction, but, fortunately, poetry furnished an escape 
valve." 

Then, as he himself characterized his mental states, he went 
into " Poe spasms," and "yielding to a hasheesh dream, went 
up in a balloon," and referring to one of his moods of deep de- 
pression, he writes that he was "looking for sundown." 



POET OF FANCY 



But later, in the poeni, The Fisherman''s Dream, he strikes a 
more hopeful chord, for in his heart he 

heard another voice 

Low-toned and full of peace, that seemed to say : 

" Behold the creatures of the field rejoice, 
And art thou less than thej? 

Know all conditions tend to perfect ends ; 

Perforin thy lot ! To heaven leave the rest. 
All things work out the good which God intends ; 

The means. He knoweth best." 

And in Unrest, he sings a similar strain : 

I drew the casement curtain aside, 

And gazed on the midnight heaven — 
On the myriad systems sprinkled wide, 

And the sisterly Pleiades seven. 
Luminous over the beautiful sea. 

Looking like souls that were just forgiven. 
And smilingly chiding me ! 

" Ah, fool ! Ah, weak of faith ! " I said, 
"The angels are watching thee overhead; 

And however men pass the day or night, 

By the Merciful One all is ordered aright." 

And in his sonnet, Going Home, referring to the end of life's 
journey, he exclaims : 

O Father, hold me not unreconciled. 

One critic says: "We recognize in the poem on Charles 
Dickens, the handiwork of an artist, and the best poem upon the 
death of the popular novelist." 

Across the sea the sudden message came, 

" Dickens is dead ! " and thrilled a nation's heart ; 

As all at once the splendor of his fame 
Illumed the world of art. 



But ah, not dead, though from our sight removed ; 

A household friend he lives and lingers still, 
Enshrined in every heart with names beloved. 

The children of his will. 



Nor we alone ! but on from age to age. 

Shall unborn thousands own the potent spell ; 



HENR V S YL VES TER C ORN WELL 



And laugh when Pickwick comes upon the stage, 
Or weep for little Nell ! 



O, great magician in the world of thought ; 

Kind teacher, whom we shall not see again ; 
God grant that these, the lessons thou hast taught, 

May not be all in vain ! 

Of The Sunset City, the Landmark says: " In presenting to 
our readers another gem from his intellectual casket, we have 
no fear that any will find the magic of his art diminished." 

* * * " The imagery, poetic fervor, and tender love of nature's 
handiwork are visible in the form and utterances of this poem." 

* * * "We hail the rising of our young American star of 
poesy, infinitely brighter than all the glow and grandeur of The 
Sunset City.''' * * * " We regard him as unquestionably 
among the coming men ; and in The Haunted House, he has 
given unmistakable evidence that the hand that penned The 
Land of Dreams and The Sunset City has not lost its occult 
cunning." 

Here silence broods — the silence of the dead I 

The lizard peeps from out the fissured walls. 
As if to chide our loud intrusive tread, 

That scares the bat from these deserted halls. 



The muUen lances pierce the rotten floors, 

To catch the sunshine glinting through the roof; 

And swinging in the solitary doors. 

The hermit spider spins his filmy woof. 

His pen picture of The Old Tine had for its original the pine 
tree which stood for many years on the lawn near the homes of 
Mr. Philip C. Dunford and the late Mr. Gilbert Bishop, 

Like some tall chieftain left alone. 
When all his race is dead. 

Tradition says there were tv/o tall pine trees in close prox- 
imity opposite the old mill and the picturesque glen our poet 
loved so well. They were named Adam and Eve, probably in 
honor of their great age. Eve, "touched by tirce," yielded to 
the elements ; Adam lingered a few years longer, when " the 
hoarse tempest " laid him low. 

Autumn, The White Lady (Snowstorm) and The Bee ar es- 
pecially full of delightful, graceful, fairy-like fancies, and abound 



POET OF FANCY 



in those verbal felicities for which his reviewers are unanimous 
in praising him. 

These delicate Imes are from Vigil : 

as the lily lifts her bright, 

Dew-thirstj, golden-throated vase, 
I upward look to drink the grace 
And tender influence of the night. 

The Cricket is a touching interpretation of solitude and 
nature. 

When sleep's soft fingers close my eyes, 
And childhood's fairy pictures rise, 
Thou art my sleepless sentinel. 
Whose watchword tells me all is well. 
Whose sudden silence,warns my ear, 
If aught of evil wanders near. 

Thou art the hermit's closest friend ; 
And when my mortal day shall end, 
And my cold hand at last shall tire 
To light at eve the fagot fire — 
Though none are left to weep for me. 
Thy song my requiem shall be ! 

In Aiitunifi we have this exquisite picture of Indian Summer : 

Now comes the mellow Indian Summer time, 

When wold and woodland, stretching far and fair. 

In panoramic splendor lie sublime, 
And waver in the illuminated air ! 

November seems with golden June to join, 

And from the morning windows white-embossed, 

The fairies of the warm west wind purloin 
The silver pictures of the artist, Frost ! 

As some sad lover, touched with soft regret. 
Pauses, remembering all his ladj's charms. 

Then chides the weakness that cannot forget, 
Then turns again to seek her happy arms ; 

So the weak year, too foolish and too fond. 
Reverses his slow steps and backward goes, 

Irresolute to break so sweet a bond. 

And leave unkist the Summer's latest rose. 

Of all Dr. Cornwell's poems The Bee is perhaps the one 
which would please the widest circle of readers. 



For he is a royal bandit bold, 
And wears a double belt of gold , 



HENR Y SYLVES TER C ORN WELL 



And hidden underneath 
A rapier in its sheath. 



Grander music some may have, 
None is half so quaint as thine ; 
Like the drowsy monotone, 
Of a tiny hagpipe's drone. 



Ah, would I too, might roam and be 
Thy Summer comrade, fancj' free ! 
And leave, for aye, the cares and strife 
That vex with trouble, mortal life, 

And follow the Spring, 

And sail and sing, 
Gipsy of the air I with thee. 
Busy, buzzy, wee, brown bee. 

A criticism in The Waverley Magazine in 1 849 is responsible 
for the statement that " although Dr. Cornwell's pen productions 
were chiefly lyrical,, he wrote several prose sketches and stories 
which prove his intellect to have been of no ordinary character." 

Many of his poems were published in The Home Journal, 
when under the editorship of N. P. Willis, it was the belles lettres 
organ of this country. Francis Gerry Fairfield, who was sub- 
editor under WiUis, Vv^rote : "Though Dr. Cornwell's tempera- 
ment was mainly lyrical, he added to literature, specimens of 
blank verse which indicate a mind often in harmony with that 
of Hood." Dr. Cornwell has also been compared to Coleridge, 
" whose best characteristics he possessed, together with all the 
dreamy loveliness of metaphor disclosed in every turn and wind- 
ing of his verse." 

In the introduction to an early edition of Dr. Cornwell's 
verse, Fairfield wrote: "Many of his poems will live in future 
anthologies." Apropos of this prediction it may be said that 
six Cornwell selections are included in Walter Learned's Treas- 
ury of A?nerka?i Verse, while Bryant's Library of Poetry and 
Song contains The Sunset City, and Edith Granger's Index' to 
Poetry and Recitatiofi includes several of the sonnets to the 
months together with My Owl, Unrest, The Angel Ferry and The 
Sunset City. 

Francis Gerry Fairfield was a native of Stafford, Conn. He 
studied theology at a Lutheran seminary in Pennsylvania and 
was for a time pastor of a church in Waterloo, N. Y., but later 
entered journalism in New York City, and made a name for 



POET OF FANCY 13 

himself among the poets. Writing further in the introduction 
just referred to, he says : " On my way to New York, I called 
on the poet with a curiosity to see this dreamer of New London, 
and receive some impression of the man whose poems were 
magnetism set to music. I found him sick, saddened, and full 
of strange spiritual fancies, to which all persons of poetic temper 
are more or less prone." 

Fairfield, in his letters, refers to his wife as a very gifted 
woman, having a finely cultivated voice, and urges our poet to 
visit them ; and " have the blue devils put to flight by her charm- 
ing and remarkable singing." He also speaks of her enthusiasm 
for the genius of Corn well, saying, " from her he had nothing to 
fear." 

Aldrich pays tribute in these words : "If your volume 
should contain many poems like The Land of Dreams and The 
Song of the Syrens, it will make you famous — famous at least 
among those who study poetry." 

In 1857 Bayard Taylor wrote: "I recollect the poems very 
distinctly. They contain a great deal of promise. They show 
true poetic feeling and a fine sense of the melody of verse. I 
looked them over with Stoddard and we both thought they pos- 
sessed true poetic feeling." 

Francis Manwaring Caulkins, New London's gifted poet and 
historian wrote in 1857: "Your pleasing poem. The Land of 
Dreams, furnishes evidence of taste and skill in poetic compo- 
sition, and makes it imperative upon you to cultivate this path 
of literature. Application is the handmaid of genius. Perse- 
vere and you cannot fail of winning garlands." 

These are brief tributes to Ur. Cornwell from the literary 
lights of his own generation ; longer and equally commendatory 
ones remain unquoted. 

That our poet Vv^as a kindly and just critic of other poets is 
recalled by Mrs. Mary L. BoUes Branch, one of New London's 
present day group of writers. 

Mrs. Marion H. Stayner Lillie writes: "Once in talking 
with Dr. Cornwell of a poem which he had just written, I spoke 
of what seemed to me an excessive use of alliteration; his justi- 
fication of this showed me how careful he was in his choice and 
shading of words — how deftly he fitted the jewelled bits into the 
mosaic of his fancy. What an artist he v/as in this." 

In his early days Ur. Cornwell wrote : " I dc not care to 
sell for money these children of my fancy ; at the same time 
'I am Skimpole.'" And again in 1874: " Their composition 



1 4 HENR Y SVLVE S TER C ORN WELL 

has been a labor of love to me, and has engaged some of the 
best hours of my life." 

Dr. Cornwell revised conscientiously, and as a rule carried 
his poems a year before he permitted them to appear in print, 
that every production might be polished like a gem. 

Many of them found ready entrance to the columns of Scrib- 
ner's, Atlantic Monthly, and other periodicals of like literary 
standing. 

As examples of his verbal felicities, these lines from his son- 
nets on the months are very striking : 

Down ring the daggered icicles like steel. 



The landscape glints with ice 
Where woodland streams from the hoar precipice 
Leap and congeal ; or where, a silver thread. 
The joyless brook pines in its frozen bed ; 
Or where by drifted roads the sign-board stands, 
And stretches toward the sun its ice-mailed hands. 

So, fierce and blustering tyrant, vanisheth 
Thy kingdom like a dream ! No requiem 
Breeze-borne for thee, laments along the land. 
For lo, behind thee, one, whose gentler breath 
Fast thaws thy diamond-frosted diadem. 
Trips radiant with a crocus in her hand ! 

Early an admirer of Tennyson, Dr. Cornwell once wrote the 
laureate, expressing his sense of the obligation of American 
poets to the English master ; and received an autograph letter 
of thanks, bearing date of June nth, 1855. 

The doctor must have been something of a linguist, for there 
is in his later published volume a little poem translated from 
the French ; and another in manuscript. Highland Johnny, is 
written in the Scotch dialect. 

His poem on The Violin was composed after hearing Eduard 
Remenyi, the Hungarian violin virtuoso, who visited the United 
States for the first time in 1849, and was later appointed solo 
violinist to Queen Victoria. 

Eulalie was set to music by Stephen Foster, composer of 
Old Folks at Home, AIassa''s in the Cold, Cold Groi/nd, and other 
popular songs. The musical critic of The Springfield Republican 
wrote of Eulalie: "The music is well adapted to the sweetness 
and pathos of the words and is probably the most correct and 
refined melody Mr. Foster has ever written." 



POET OF FANCY 15 



In politics, Dr. Cornwell was an enthusiastic Republican. 
Ardently loyal during the Civil War, numerous poems were in- 
spired by his fervor of patriotic feeling. 

\xi Jefferson D., printed in The New York Tribune, the doc- 
tor gives the gentleman addressed a piece of his mind in forceful 
English. Lex Virginiana is a caustic satire on the John Brown 
episode, and appeared in the New London Chronicle. The 
New Haven Palladium published his stirring piece entitled 
Conquer or Die, which contains this prophetic stanza : 

Still Queen of the world shall America be, 

The hope of the exile, the pride of the free ; 

Her watchword is " Onward ; " her mission divine ; 

And the star of her glory shall never decline ! 

Then fling out the flag to the breezes on high. 

Wherever it leads us we conquer or die ! 

From his poem on Lincoln these few lines are quoted : 

O, Great Backwoodsman, Statesman, President ! 
If this one loud lament 

Can reach the glorious station where thovi art — 
Take to thy own great heart 

The homage and the gratitude we owe ! 

We never knew we loved thee so, 
Till thou didst vanish at the Shining Gate, 
Leaving us desolate! 
Ah me, the slow revolving years 
Shall come again, and go. 
And stars and seasons circle in their spheres. 

Perennial as our woe ! 

Dr. Cornwell was a Freemason, and to Union Lodge of New 
London belongs the distinction of having enrolled him as a 
member in October, 1866. 

There is now in the possession of Mr. John C. Turner a 
charm which Dr. Cornwell used to wear upon his watch guard. 
It is a little gold emblem of the crescent and the star, bearing 
the initials K. K. O. If any one can interpret the inscription, 
the writer would gladly be enlightened. 

Some of Dr. Cornwell's poems of the early sixties were sug- 
gested by scenes and incidents at the home of ths late Mr. 
Gilbert Bishop, where a little coterie of choice friends frequently 
met. Mr. George C. Waldo and Miss Evelyn Forsyth (Mrs. 
Yarndley, a pleasing writer of verse, now resident in Chicago) 
were among the number. For the delectation of these friends, 
Mr. Waldo contributed a little pen and ink production, entitled 



i6 HENR Y SYLVES TER C ORN WELL 

The Semi-Occasional Latitudinarian. Its contents were mostly 
nonsense in prose and verse, written as the spirit moved — to 
use Mr. Waldo's phrase — and they were illustrated by his pen. 

A pleasing sequence of the reading of this memoir in manu- 
script before the Lucretia Shaw Chapter, D. A. R., was the dis- 
covery that the Latitudinarian papers — supposed by their author 
to have met oblivion — had been, at an early date, collected and 
bound and were still preserved among the treasures of the 
Bishop home. 

From 1873 to 1880, The New London Telegram enjoyed a 
reputation for printing very good poetry. The Poet's Corner 
was under the supervision of Mr. John C. Turner, and was 
frequently graced by Dr. Cornwell's compositions. 

One of the doctor's most cherished possessions was an old 
daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he so much admired. 
It is now the property of Mr. Turner, to whom it was presented 
by the poet some little time previous to his death. 

Our poet numbered among his friends Sarah Helen Whitman, 
the brilliant woman who was at one time the fiancee of Poe, and 
they frequently exchanged poems in the course of their cor- 
respondence. In a paper called The Star Spangled Banner, 
was printed a poem, presumably hers, though not signed with 
full name, addressed to H. S. Cornwell, in which she thus pre- 
dicts recognition of his songs : 

Sing on, rare minstrel ! Future days, 
Shall bring to thee a worthy name 
That shall not be forgotten. Fame 
Shall crown thy brows with greenest bays. 

It would be a fine instance of " poetic justice," if those lines 
might prove the answer to the questions the poet asks of Fate, 
when composing, In the Library. 

A spell is on my fancy cast 
By wits and poets of the past ; 



I revel in the fancies fine 

Of all the long illustrious line ; 



So musing on their deathless fame, 
I think, shall I, too, leave a name .? 
Shall my poor songs, when I am dumb, 
Delight some heart in years to come? 



POET OF FANCY 17 



The singer walked our winding shady streets almost un- 
recognized. It was permitted us to "touch him in the throng 
and press " of busy life, yet we knew him not for the manner of 
poet that he was. 

As the writer recalls him, Dr. Corn well was of medium 
height, with the slightly stooping shoulders of the student. His 
exceptionally large amber-grey eyes glowed from behind the 
gold-rimmed glasses clearly, but most often with a far-away un- 
seeing gaze. His fine, broad forehead was framed with abun- 
dant waving hair, originally jet black, and scarcely touched with 
grey at the time of his death. 

Morbidly sensitive in temperament, modest to a fault when 
gauging his own literary merit, he yet loved praise when he 
could believe it was sincere and merited. 

His penmanship was delicate and refined, not unlike speci- 
mens of the feminine hand of half a century ago. 

Through the kindness of a mutual friend, the writer has en- 
joyed the privilege of reading his letters and poems in manu- 
scripts that are models of neatness. 

As known by his poetic fruits. Dr. Cornwell would seem to 
have been well endowed with imagination, wit and humor, yet 
some supposed authority is reported to have said that " his 
phrenological developments indicated a mind more inclined to 
deep thought than playful fancy, to reasoning rather than to 
mirthfulness." In this connection might be mentioned a bright 
little thing printed among his early poems. 

A Redbreast sat on an orchard's edge ; 
Singing, " Heigh-ho, I'm Robin ! " — 
When he spied an urchin under the hedge, 
To the farmer's apples laying siege — 
And he knew it was wrong, 
But continued his song, 
Singing, " Heigh-ho, he's robbin' !" 

His Advent of the Mosquito has been much quoted. 

His sucker, like a burglar's drill. 

Would pierce an iron door; 
He loves as Alexander did, 

To wade in human gore, 
And like the Hoosac Tunnel, he's 

An everlasting bore. 



HENR V S YL VE S TER C ORN WELL 



Quite delightful is the rollicking rhythm of Health to Con- 
necticut, a poem of five stanzas, from which these three are 
taken : 

Now in a pint of " native grape" 

(My blessing on the sender) 
Whose blush is not the kind that owns 

The fixing of the vender — 
To hardv old Connecticut 

A hearty health I render — 
May despots ever fear her name, 

And patriots defend her ! 



Shall pumpkin pies be e'er forgot, 

Or those Thanksgiving dinners — 
Where marshalling a household host, 

Of hungry saints and sinners. 
Attacking Turkey long and strong. 

At last we ended winners ; 
Or only beat retreat to make 

More room for new beginners? 



Then here's to old Connecticut — 

God's benizon upon her ! 
Who shows so fair a register, 

However we may con her? 
Long may she live, and long enjoy 

The fame her worth has won her — 
Long live to rear her gallant sons 

To posts of trust and honor ! 

Two very pretty examples of the doctor's light verse are 
Mignonette and Sub- Rosa, copies of which are kindly furnished 
for this memoir by the friend to whom they were inscribed : 

MIGNONETTE. 

" Now tell me true," the maiden said, 

" Which of these flowers you love the best ; 

Pied pinks, or roses white and red. 
Sweet mignonette and all the rest." 

And I replied, "To choose were hard 

Where fancy upon each is set ; 
But still my tenderer regard 

I yield to modest mignonette." 



POET OF FANCY 19 



She only smiled a thoughtful smile, 

The triumph of her secret power ; 
Ah me ! how could I tell the while, 

Her friends had named her for the flower. 

SUB-ROSA. 

Last night when eve's one star was set 

Pale in the western skv, 
I sat and watched with Mignonette 

The amber twilight die. 

Our words were sad, some elfin fell 

So envied joy's repose ; 
But what we said I cannot tell. 

It was beneath the rose. 

For cares will come, though mortals pray 

For pleasures overplus ; 
We only clasp our hands and say ; 

" Dear Rose, be true to us ! " 

Our poet loved old ocean, 

The lonely sea-gull knows my form 

As I walk by the rolling wave. 
And his jubilant scream from the flying storm 

Is the voice of a comrade brave. 

And on the shore he heard 

The solemn wind a-talking 
And the answer of the sea. 

By the amber light 
Of the magic moon, 
I sat by the summer sea ; 
And listened long with a sti-ange delight, 
At night, in the leafy month of June, 
To the mystic rune of its ceaseless tune, 
And its marvelous melody. 

And in the refrain he seemed to hear 

For what are the kings of the earth to me ? 
I am the Spirit of the Sea ! 

The first collection of Dr. Cornwell's poems known to the 
writer is the edition published by Riggs & Co., of Middletown. A 
later edition was published by Charles Allyn, of New London, 
and contained only a few of what the poet esteemed to be his 
choicest pen productions. 



HENRY SYLVESTER CORNWELL 



A copy presented to Mr. and Mrs. James H. Hill contains 
this gracefully modest inscription : 

If, in your intervals of ease, 

These songs of mine have power to please; 

Not farther need my hope aspire, 

I have accomplished my desire. 

Dr. Cornwell was very fond of New London, the home of 
his adoption, and his residences elsewhere were brief. After 
learning his trade and before going to Yale College, he worked 
for a time in Westfield, Conn., and after receiving his diploma, 
he was located for a short period in Middletown. 

When, in later life he found it advisable to try the bracing 
air of the West for incipient pulmonary troubles, he spent one 
winter in Kansas, and two in Minnesota. That he longed for 
the old home is apparent from these lines in Winter Midnight, 
written in Minnesota, in 1873 : 

But in vain for me the red North shakes 

His battle-banners on high ; 
Or like golden bridges, o'er streams and lakes. 

The shafts of the moonlight lie ; 

There is beauty below, there is splendor above, 

But ah, they are nothing to me ! 
For my heart is afar with the friends I love, 

By the shore of the Eastern sea. 

One of Dr. Cornwell's latest and most plaintive poems is 
Together, the last stanza of which is given here. 

We want each other so — to comprehend 

The dream, the hope, things planned, or seen, or wrought. 

Companion, comforter, and guide, and friend ! 

As much as love asks love, does thought need thought. 

Life is so short, so fast the lone hours fly — 

We ought to be together, you and I ! 

A friend who essays poetry observed to the writer, " I am 
struck with the wisdom of Mr. Aldrich's commendation." Dr. 
Cornwell's greatest claim is certainly on those who study poetry. 
" His special genius," continues this modern critic, " was for 
language. He was first and always a musician. He played 
with words as though they were the keys of an instrument. His 
technique is a fascinating study to anyone who attempts poetic 
composition. For whatever he desires to express he has vivid 
and musical forms for its embodiment. If he occupies a lower 



POET OF FANCY 



niche of fame than other American poets, it is due to no lack 
of natural faculty for expression, but to difference in ideals. 
Language is after all but the medium for the poet's message. 
Poetry with Dr. Cornwell was largely the diversion of a mind of 
recluse habit. It served the need of his own life and gives 
pleasure of its special kind to those who read. 

" Even the defects of his poems are in themselves of psycho- 
logical interest to students of poetry. The melancholy of the 
man is seen to reappear in his work as lack of faith in the high- 
est realities of life. His sentiment cannot be depended on to be 
always wholesome. He does not find the ultimate word to say 
on his themes, because he is not inspired to look for it. 

"The master poet is known by his 'compelling note,' the 
secret of which is faith, and he is immortal through the moral 
uplift which he imparts to men, a saving grace to which they 
cling as to life itself. 

" Other poets have had greater opportunities as thinkers and 
make a more universal appeal to the hearts and minds of their 
fellowmen, but Dr. Cornwell's fame is secure within its own 
limits. He had a rare particular quality of expression, from a 
union of eye and ear faculty, which is perhaps best described in 
Fairfield's words ; ' His ear for music is so subtle that he seems 
to see with it ; and with the Arab's ear he is a little Saracenic 
in the type of his imaginings.' " 

Living almost the life of a recluse our poet formed few 
friendships, but these were lasting ; for those who knew him best 
appreciated him most. Thomas S. Collier, of the U. S. Navy, 
author of Song Spray, John R. BoUes, our lawyer poet, the tal- 
ented Major John A. Tibbitts, the brilliant Oscar F. Hewitt, the 
publicly-devoted George Colfax — all these of Dr. Cornwell's 
former associates, have found with him the land which to us is 
still " The Undiscovered Country." 

Between Dr. Cornwell and George C. Waldo, editor of The 
Bridgeport Standard, John C. Turner, another journalist, and 
Walter Learned, New London's banker poet, there existed a 
warm frienship, notwithstanding the disparity of years. 

Also among the doctor's intimates were the popular and ver- 
satile Dr. Edward Prentis, to whom our city is indebted for the 
valuable Vv^ork, Ye Antient Buriall Place ; and Mr. Horace H. 
Daboll, of the firm of Nichols ^ Harris, whose pharmacy was 
one of Dr. Cornwell's favorite haunts. Mr. Daboll still devotedly 
cherishes a number of choice books, the gift of his friend ; and 
in his well known genial way, delights to recount incidents of 
his association with their donor. 



HENR V SYLVES TER C ORN WELL 



Some one has said, " Quantity as well as quality, when the 
quality is always high, goes to prove genius." 

The extent and variety of Dr. Cornwell's literary achieve- 
ments is surprising, when it is remembered that his career was 
threefold. Writing was with him but an avocation followed side 
by side with his successive bread-winning vocations. Moreover 
he had to contend with the slow encroachments of the disease 
which was to bring him the death summons while he yet lacked 
fifteen years of the allotted span of human life. Not devoting 
himself exclusively to literature, he lacked the self-confidence 
bred by the "give and take" of contact with fellow workers 
which would have led him farther into the field of publication. 

When "the clock of the year was striking the hour of June," 
on the sixth day — 1886 — after many and varied sufferings. Dr. 
Cornwell gained his final rest. 

His last illness occurred at the residence of the late Mr. 
Joseph Scroggie, where for a number of years he had made his 
home. His brother physicians were most devoted, one or 
another being constantly in attendance at his bedside. 

He was borne to a quiet country burial ground in Westfield, 
a few miles from Meriden, and laid near the grave of the girl he 
had loved in his youth; and as befits one who had ever held 
nature dear, he reposes in a beautiful, peaceful spot, where the 
wild birds sing sweetly in the summer time, and the wild flowers 
grow and blossom in the grass. 

When you and I are asleep, my love, 

Under the carven stone ; 
Who will there be left to weep, my love, 

Of all that we have known ? 
But the lark will sing as clear and free, 
As she springs from her nest in the alder-tree. 
And the robin carol his heart's desire, 
Above us in the red-rose brier. 

* * * • 

But it's. Oh, for the long and lasting sleep, 
Where the wild-wood honeysuckles creep ! 
Under the violets to lie, 
And let the weary world go by. 

Although Dr. Cornwell was never a member of any church, 
that he was far from indifferent to the power of religion is 
evidenced by such poems as The Angel Ferry and Going Home. 



The shadows deepen, one by one, 

The sun is set, the day is done. 

And like a star on my growing sight. 



POET OF FANCY 23 



I can see at last the signal light. 

High over the rocking wave it rides, 

And swiftly toward the margin glides, 

I can hear the rush of that spirit barque, 

And mellow splendors pierce the dark ! 

Adieu, dim world ! ere I'm wafted o'er 

To the friends who wait on the farther shore. 

GOING HOME. 

When the end comes, and like a tired child, 

I fall beside the long highway of Time, 

Nor strive the last, rough, upward range to climb — 

O Father, hold me not unrecognized ! 

Let me not then remember all the wild 

And thorny ways through which my wounded feet 

So long have toiled ; but rather what beguiled 

My way of pain, and made it oft times sweet 

With laughter of glad streams, and pastures green, 

And fragrant forest pathways opening wide 

On dewy meadows sparkling in the sun. 

Like gleams of Paradise in dreams foreseen ! 

So shall my slumber be unterrified. 

And my awakening find the journey done. 

This was the poet Cornwell. 

'' Say not the poet dies ; 

His soul the air enshrines and leaves but dust below. 



DEC aO 190b 



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